This past month we were in the mountains of Swaziland working at an orphanage ministry called El Shaddai. El Shaddai is home to around 60 orphan children whose parents have died or weren’t able to care for their children.The life expectancy in Swaziland is somewhere around 30 years because AIDS is a big problem in this country. It is such a problem that if things continue at the rate they are now, Swaziland will no longer exist in 20 years.
The AIDS problem also results in a lot of orphaned children. This is where El Shaddai steps in to try and help these kids. The kids that come here receive love and care, three meals a day, and shelter. They also receive a free education from pre-school through high school. The school is also open to kids in the surrounding community. Many kids in the community will walk from over an hour away to come to this school because it is free. The other school in the community is not free so many kids are not able to go.
Another important part of El Shaddai is that each child is raised up in a Christian environment. 5 days a week there is chapel after school, which we were in charge of leading this past month. Each chapel started with singing and then the kids were split up according to age to have a short bible study or lesson for the day. The men from my team had the privilege to work with the 6 high school age guys. Some days we took turns sharing whatever was on our heart that day. Other days we would play soccer or just hang out with them and talk about life. It was challenging to get the guys to open up to us but I know they heard the gospel message clearly and now we leave God to do the rest.
As I mentioned before, El Shaddai is located high in the mountains of Swaziland. The nearest town is about an hour’s drive away. That means there is no place to shop for food nearby besides a small store that sometimes will have bread. To provide food for themselves, most people who live up in the mountains have their own small farms. We often would see people herding their cattle through the mountains. We also saw herds of goats and chickens. There are also many small fields of corn here and there. Some farms have a small tractor to do the plowing of the land, but I have seen many others who use their cows to plow. Planting is also done by hand for the most part.
The cows the Swazi people have are not used for food. The cows are seen as a sign of wealth. The more cows someone has the more wealthy that person is perceived to be. Coming from a dairy farm in Minnesota it’s hard to understand how people can be starving here when they have all these cows and don’t use them for food. But it’s a cultural thing that will probably never change.
One of the highlights of my month was working with John the maintenance guy at El Shaddai. I was able to work on several projects with him and had several opportunities to talk about Jesus with him as well as hear his story.
Overall my team and I have had a great month in Swaziland. Coming into this month my team changed a little bit. My new team consists of Richard Bowman, Vanessa Morga, Becky Arce, and new members Mark Hengst, April Kenton, and Teresa Schellhouse. My new team has worked well together and we have become very close. It’s been so great getting to know the new members of the team and seeing how God is bringing us together.
